


Witch Ex Machina

by TheodoreR



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Human!Theo, M/M, Protective Liam, Taking Pain, Theo's nose can't have a break
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-06-30 10:29:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15749868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheodoreR/pseuds/TheodoreR
Summary: “What did you do to her?”“Itoldyou” Theo closes his eyes and takes a deep sigh, as to invoke calm. “That I didn’t do or say absolutely anything to her. I asked her if she could make change for me and-”“Couldn’t you go ask in a bar like normal people? Who goes asking for change to a witch, Theo,who?”





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

“What did you do to her?”

“I _told_ you” Theo closes his eyes and takes a deep sigh, as to invoke calm. “That I didn’t do or say absolutely anything to her. I asked her if she could make change for me and-”

“Couldn’t you go ask in a bar like normal people? Who goes asking for change to a witch, Theo, _who?”_

“And she started rattle on about abominations and balance and restoring the natural order, when all I needed was change for the parking, fucking old psych-”

“So you felt mistreated and what did you _do_ to her _?”_

“Nothing!” There’s something exasperated and very, very aggressive in the glare Theo is now throwing at him, as if Liam was the one going around fighting with no reason with innocent old ladies just to run back home panicked and convinced he had been cursed. He’s not. That’s Theo. They’ve been talking about it for twenty minutes and Theo keeps picturing himself as the incarnation of innocence itself descended among mortals, but Liam is sure he has made at least one inappropriate comment about the poor lady. Just like that time the wolves pack of the neighbour town declared war to theirs and Theo swore until the very end he didn’t say anything, until Derek came back to town to direct the peace negotiations and the first condition the other pack asked was that Theo had to apologize with the Alpha’s wife for that comment about her hair. “I didn’t say a single word, I just handed her ten dollars and she went crazy for no reason, she threw a spell at me and so I walked away and-”

“You mean you ran away.”

“ _I quickly walked away_ and now I’m human.”

Liam sighs, studying warily the boy in front of him and not noticing anything different compared to when he walked out of the house that morning.

“You’re _sure_ you’re human, yes?”

“Yes Liam, I’m _sure_ , it’s the only reason why I didn’t shift to slash your throat with my claws the sixth time you asked me that.” Theo rolls his eyes and Liam is aware he has been a little repetitive in the last minutes, but in his defence the answers to his questions still didn’t start to have a semblance of sense. “Actually, are _you_ sure you’re a werewolf? Shouldn’t you be able to tell because of my scent or...”

“Your scent?” Liam frowns confused.

“Yes, my scent.” Theo widens his eyes and he has the same tone you use to point out the obvious to someone particularly slow, but Liam is too focused now to get offended. His scent, of course. If Theo was human, Liam should be able to tell through his wolf nose. Immediately he takes a step closer and then another one, curling his nose a little. Then he steps even closer, inhaling slowly and leaning his head a bit towards Theo’s neck, concentrating. Theo smells like he always smells, that pleasant mix between his hair gel and something indefinite and comforting, and Liam can’t find any difference. What he notices on the other hand is the way Theo’s heartbeat fastens his pace distinctly when Liam’s nose accidentally brushes his ear.

“Your heart” He says straightening surprised, while Theo stiffens. “You can’t control your heartbeat like you usually do.”   

“What does my heart have anything to do with anything now?” Theo snorts annoyed, while his heart starts beating even faster, surprising Liam even more. He’s not used to be the one noticing the little things, Theo is the one always keeping in check the signals his body is allowed to send, he’s the one always throwing in his face with his peaceful smirk the easiness with he’s able to read Liam’s mood swings, while now Liam can literally smell his embarrassment and hear every single beat his heart is missing, just like...

“I think you’re human.”

Theo looks at him startled for a second only, before huffing.  
“You discovered hot water, congrats, now could you please move so I can go back to-”

Liam takes a quick step to his left, shielding his laptop with his body. Behind him, the screen is still illuminated on the Google home screen, a clear written on the search bar: _‘where to buy a-’_

“You’re not buying a shotgun, Theo, we already talked about this.”

“She _started_ _it_.”

“This is not a good enough reason to gun down an old lady.” Liam insists, feeling so weird in being the voice of reason. He’s usually the one who needs to be held back, sometimes quite literally, from doing in the heat of the moment the things the rest of the world doesn’t consider socially  acceptable, while now he’s all there is standing between Theo and the purchase of a shotgun.

He’s not the only one who noticed the reversal of roles because as he crashes against him, trying to shove him away, Theo snaps back: “Right, it’s better to claw her head out, like you would have done with Nol-”

The point is, it’s not the first time Theo finds his evil comments broken in half by a well placed punch on his mouth: it’s what they do, bickering, getting on each others’ nerves, hitting exactly the sore button and start a fight. Liam punches Theo and if he catches him by surprise he lands on the floor, like right now, and then he stands up and gives the punch back just as violently, and then Liam is the one falling on the floor, and so on until they can’t remember the reason why they started punching each other on the first place and the only thing that matters is rolling on the ground while shoving each other and there was that time when Theo bit his shoulder and Liam was taken aback because he didn’t know bites were allowed during fights. Anyway, Liam _likes_ fighting with Theo, he finds it a familiar and venting activity and Theo likes it too, or else he wouldn’t tease him so obviously most of the time, not to count the times he’s the one raising hands first, but usually Theo doesn’t fly across the room for one single punch not even that hard.

Theo is still on the floor moaning with his hands on his face and Liam widens his eyes horrified, realizing just now that usually Theo isn’t human when they fight.

“Oh god” Liam says while Theo says “ _mmphm”_ , keeping wriggling on the floor in a way that Liam would find funny if he didn’t find it already so dramatic. “Oh god” He repeats and then he darts forwards, reaching the other and raising his hands, just to leave them there in the air, without knowing exactly what to do with them. “I didn’t mean to!” He shouts kneeling next to Theo, before jumping back startled by his own scream. He didn’t plan on screaming it so loud, especially because it’s not true, of course Liam meant to, he raised his arm and he closed his hand in a fist and he made sure it crashed right against Theo’s face in order to shut him up, it was in no way accidental, he wasn’t pointing at something forgetting to raise his index, he did it in the most voluntary way possible and yet _he didn’t mean to_. “Theo, are you okay? Is it broken? Does it hurt? Can you move it?” Liam is completely in panic as he leans again over Theo, squeezing his shoulders a little and helping him in a sitting position, and maybe it’s because he’s in panic that he just asked Theo if he can move his nose, as if noses did that many movements even in normal conditions.  

Theo’s answer is the same one that he’s giving him since he threw him on the other side of the room, that is _“mpfhmm”_ , but once he’s sitting against the wall it assumes an huffy note filtering perfectly through the empty spaces left among his fingers pressed on his nose, together with blood and irritation. Liam takes several seconds to distinguish every wave of hostility rolling off Theo, the one in his tone, the one coming from his watery eyes now fixed on Liam in an homicidal glare, and the one he can smell with the blood, like something just as corporeal.

“Let me see” Liam says, succeeding in hiding the panic in his voice a little better now that he’s actually calmer: if Theo has the time to be mad at him it means he’s not dying and Liam’s punch didn’t shove his nose so deep into his skull to make it hole his brain and cause him cerebral death.

Theo grumbles in protest and fights Liam’s hold on his wrists, keeping him from moving his hands away from his face. Liam _knows_ he can apply a little more strength and move them without them remaining in his hands, that just because he can’t take a werewolf punch like he used to it doesn’t mean he’s made of crystal now, and yet the fountains of sprinkling blood that would come out from Theo’s truncated wrists if Liam accidentally tore out his hands are too vivid in his mind and so he immediately loosens his hold, closing his eyes to focus. As soon as the pain starts converging in his fingers, Theo wriggles even more annoyed and Liam opens his eyes without moving.

“I’ll help you find a shotgun if you stay still” He says and Theo stops immediately.

Liam distinctly smells a glint of euphoria among the metallic smell of blood now. It’s a good thing Theo can’t listen to his heartbeat and find out Liam would put a newborn to drive a tank rather than help him find any kind of weapon.

After several seconds the black veins connecting their hands vanish and Theo relaxes visibly, finally letting his fingers slip from his face.

“I’m going to kill you” He announces with a funny nasal voice as Liam fails at hiding a laugh, producing a loud noise that earns him a murderous glare.

“It’s not even broken” Liam shrugs and then his nose makes _crack_ against Theo’s forehead.

 

***

 

Theo opens his eyes in total distress, feeling his face frozen and his head aching. He’s not on the floor anymore and Liam is sitting next to him, on the edge of the bed, a hand keeping an ice bag in balance on Theo’s nose.

“You headbutted me and then you fainted” He answers to his unspoken question and it’s clear from the way the corners of his mouth twist that he finds it funny.

Theo headbutted him, now he remembers it, and this explains the other frozen feeling in the upper part of his head.

“Did I hurt you?” He asks immediately, while his mind already elaborates back up plans in case of negative answers.

“Quite enough. Not so much that _I fainted_ , but you broke my nose.”

Theo is pretty satisfied with the answer and especially with not having to ask Mason to lend him his baseball bat, and he’s a little less satisfied that he ruined it by fainting: being human sucks and he’ll force the psycho bitch to change him back in a heartbeat, right before he changes her status of being alive. With bullets.

“Hey, easy” Liam’s hands are on his shoulders before Theo can lift himself of an inch, thanks to werewolf reflexes he had too until that morning. “You took a good hit, stay down.”

“I need...” Theo’s eyes run to the laptop, but Liam grins.

“I already ordered it on Amazon for you while you were out.”

Theo raises his brow and both his nose and his head protest painfully. “You ordered me a shotgun on Amazon?”

“Yes, look” Liam extracts his phone from his pocket, his lips pressed against each other to hold a smile. He taps on the screen for a few seconds and then he places under his eyes the Amazon section “sent order”, where Theo can see a fucking water gun. “It’s the biggest they have, so you’ll be able to drown the old lady, okay?”

It’s _not_ okay, at all, Theo wants an actual shotgun to terrify her with and to shoot her in the kneecaps in case of non-collaboration, but Liam just actually ordered him a water gun on Amazon while he was unconscious and his rolling eyes can’t hide his little smile.

“Don’t call her _old lady_ ” He points out after a few seconds, annoyed, raising a hand to keep by himself the ice bag on his nose. “She’s a psycho bitch, she could have killed me: if I didn’t notice I was human I could have thrown myself under a car thinking I was going to heal and instead-”

“Why would you throw yourself under a car?”

“Because I _can”_ Theo replies obvious. “She didn’t even warn me I couldn’t do it anymore, that I wouldn’t have healed. That’s probably what she was hoping for, that I wouldn’t notice and...”

“That’s absolutely what she was hoping for, yes. All the werewolves throw themselves under a car on a daily basis because they _can.”_ Liam still has that vaguely amused and condescending look, as if Theo was some puppy dog biting his tail and not a person who just had his life dramatically overturned, and he’s not okay with it, but as soon as he opens his mouth Liam hushes him. “I already warned Deaton that we’ll visit him tomorrow with new fascinating supernatural problems, now try to sleep.”

Theo doesn’t want to go to sleep without having resolved anything except the purchase of a water gun – that he’ll fill with wolfsbane dissolved in water by the way, the pack just need to _try_ and bully him now that he’s human-, but he doesn’t want to go to Deaton at 10 p.m. and covered in ice bags, so he tries to get up to walk to his room, but Liam stops him again, a firm hand on his chest.

“You sleep here” He says without looking at him. “You could have a concussion for all we know. And it’s not like you don’t always fall asleep here when we play Halo anyway.”

Liam disappears into the bathroom and Theo stares at the ceiling, without finding anything more than a snort to reply with: it’s not like he never fell asleep on Liam’s bed, it’s true. _It’s not like they never woke up cuddling._

 

**

 

Liam walks back in the room with another blanket and Theo finds it pretty ridiculous, since it’s not like he’s dying and he can’t lift himself enough to slip under the blankets now under him, but if Liam wants to play his personal servant, untying his shoes and removing them delicately, fixing the ice bag on his head and tucking him in the blanket, Theo has no intention on protesting, that deep down he’s always been convinced of being worthy of personal slaves.

He wanted an entire pack of them once, but Liam is enough now.

He’s still staring at the ceiling, because he fell into the part of someone paralyzed by a kanima by now, but he still registers Liam’s sudden weight on the mattress, just like the warm body heat now next to him.

The only light in the room is the one coming from the street lamp through the window and Theo closes his eyes, because he’s pretty sure the talking is over now: it hasn’t been officialised, nobody said _goodnight,_ but they didn’t say it the other times they fell asleep together neither, since it was always an accident –except _that_ time, when Liam fell asleep first and Theo had all the time to think that that was the moment he was supposed to get up and go back to his room, and he didn’t. But Liam was sleeping then, while he’s very much awake a few inches from him now, and so is Theo, and they’re there lying together in bed and they planned on doing it and it’s nothing special, but Theo still can’t help but feel a weird sense of euphoria mixed with anxiety that does everything except reconcile sleep.

Lost as he is in his thoughts, Theo takes a while to realize Liam is now too close, that it’s not normal the way he can feel his warm breath tickling his neck, making him shiver.

“What are you doing?” He asks opening his eyes and shifting on his side. Liam, on his side as well and as close as he expected him, looks at him in silence for a second, before moving his hand and placing the ice bag back in his place. “Your scent” He whispers then and Theo doesn’t know why he’s talking so low now. It’s not like Jenna and David couldn’t sleep through a metal concert anyway. “I want to see if there’s a difference.”

This is not socially acceptable, starting to sniff the person you’re supposed to sleep next to, and Theo would point that out, if it wasn’t for the sudden heat he feels at the sides of his neck and the suspicious fastening his heartbeat took without consulting him. He doesn’t even dare imagining what chemosignals his body is sending Liam’s nose right now and he never hated that fucking witch as he does now, while Liam goes from his neck to his jaw, keeping inhaling slowly a few inches from his skin, stopping a little below his chin.  

Then he lifts himself up and his eyes linger on the lower part of Theo’s face for a few seconds before moving to his forehead. “Does it still hurt?”

His voice is low and hoarse and Theo swallows silently before shaking his head and immediately causing himself a sharp pain. “No, I’m perfectly fine” He says because it’s not dignified to hurt yourself by headbutting someone, but he stops when Liam’s right hand fingers brush his ear before slipping softly in his hair, naturally intertwining with it  as they climb to caress his nape, until Liam’s thumb wipes the damp left by the ice bag on his hairline, after his other hand pushed it back. Theo can’t see the black veins darkening on the other boy’s forearms, but he knows exactly when Liam starts taking his pain, looking him in the eyes.

Liam keeps moving softly his fingers in his hair and Theo is not particularly lucid, but he thinks distinctly that he never hated the old witch _less_ than now.

“And your nose” Liam says after a while, tracing its profile with a finger, touching it barely. “Does it hurt anymore?”

Not at all.

“Yes, pretty bad actually.”

There’s a sudden twitch, barely perceptible, in Liam’s lips, then the pillow Theo is resting on sinks under Liam’s palm, as he leans over him. Theo closes his eyes and he feels warm lips touching softly the tip of his nose. He opens them again just when Liam parts from him, almost a minute later.

Liam is still above him and he’s staring.

“I can hear when you’re lying now” He says and Theo is too focused on his breath brushing his lips to actually register what he said. When he realizes it, after a while, the mattress is already bouncing a little under Liam’s weight after he let himself fall back next to him.

“Goodnight, Pinocchio” He says and Theo snorts.

“’Night” He mumbles still staring at the ceiling, then he lifts himself on his elbow and presses a quick kiss on Liam’s lips.  “And improve your aim, for fuck’s sake.”    

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I translated this little second part too because I promised it to Des for being their lovely supportive self, so might as well post it, right? Right.

 

“Who did this?”

Liam knew he should have gone with Theo to Deaton, he _knew._

There’s always some member of the pack at the clinic because Deaton kinda adopted them all apparently and even if by now everyone seems used to Theo being an ally and literally living with Liam, there’s always some weird looks thrown around and reminders about him not actually being _in_ the pack and just having him there suddenly human and vulnerable must have been an irresistible temptation for someone.

Theo doesn’t answer, crossing quickly the hallway to the bathroom, but Liam stops him grabbing his arm, just to leave it immediately when he realizes his claws are dangerously close to surfacing. _The sun, the moon..._

“Theo, what the hell happened?”

 Liam is actually surprised with his ability to control himself, since nothing is being thrown on the floor or anything like that, when the truth is that he’s seeing red.

Theo has a broken lip and his nose, that when he walked out that morning was back at being perfect as always, is swollen and smeared with blood, as if someone with a supernatural strength punched it again, much harder than Liam.

What actually makes his blood boil in his veins tough is the red he spots in Theo’s eyes, as if he just stopped crying.  

“Theo, tell me who did this.” He growls taking his chin between his fingers, studying carefully his face. Theo probably said or did something to provoke such a reaction from the pack, Liam knows that rationally, because it’s what Theo always does, every time, teasing and mocking to exhaustion, and he couldn’t care less. There’s blood on Theo’s face and it wasn’t him, it wasn’t an accident and someone is going to pay.

“It’s nothing, leave me” Theo wriggles from his hold and reaches the bathroom with his eyes on the floor, leaving behind a trail of annoyance and shame.

“Was it Malia?” Liam insists automatically following him and Theo’s smell turns into irritation in his nostrils.

“Look, I don’t want to talk about it, okay? Forget it.”

It’s not okay, at all, Liam wants to talk about it until he’ll have a name and then he wants to _talk_ to whoever did that to Theo and the urgency to do that is strong as not many things Liam felt in his life, but Theo looks tired, embarrassed and defeated all at once, so Liam nods and slips the wet towel from his hands, helping him clean the blood from his face. When he touches his fingers and instinctively starts taking his pain, he’s still too angry to actually feel it.

 

 

***

 

When Theo finally stops looking so mortified after several Halo games, Liam offers to go grab lunch from Chipotle, the Chimera’s favourite, and leaves the other boy on his bed with, once again, an ice bag on his nose.

Liam doesn’t go to Chipotle of course, not right away.

 

***

 

 

When Liam comes back with a bag full of Tacos in his arms, Theo is still in the middle of his more and more unsuccessful search for a shotgun.

“We’re in America, how can it be so difficult for a minor to buy a shotgun? Unbelievable. They should throw rifles at me.” He snorts annoyed. Liam rolls his eyes, closing the laptop on his legs and pushing it away. Theo would protest, but Liam immediately replaces the empty space on his knees with a Chipotle bag and Theo smiles satisfied.

“For god’s sake, Theo, you don’t actually need a shotgun,” Of course Theo needs a shotgun, Deaton still hasn’t found a solution and he’s stuck in a human body when the old bitch still walks around with her kneecaps intact. There are so many things wrong with that and Theo would point it out, but Liam precedes him, making him frown. “Not when you have these.”

Liam is sitting next to him and he’s showing him his now bared claws. Theo stares at them perplexed, because that’s exactly the problem: Theo doesn’t have them anymore.

“Except I don’t” He points out rolling his eyes and sinking his head in the bag, grabbing a warm envelope. That’s all he has now, tacos.  

“Yes you do” Liam insists and Theo moves his attention away from his lunch to glance at him confused. “I mean, I have them, and it’s the same thing.”

Liam keeps looking at him firm and Theo’s heart just missed a beat. Immediately he starts elaborating an answer to distract the other boy, something about forgetting the sauces, except Liam didn’t forget them, because he never does.

“I talked to the pack, nobody will touch you again.”

Theo almost chokes on the first bite.

“You... _what?!”_

“Of course, if you just _told_ me who did it I wouldn’t have had to slam literally all my friends against the wall, one by one, but whatever, it’s done now.” Liam sighs still visibly pissed and Theo keeps staring with wide eyes. “Maybe it’s better this way, if I knew who it was...and now they all got the message anyway.”

 

 

There’s a part of Theo, somewhere near his chest, that melts in a warm mix of emotions at the thought that Liam just spent the previous hour threatening his friends, his _pack_ , to which Theo doesn’t belong to, for him, a part that would love to focus on that only and that blushes a little, causing him to sink his teeth in his Tacos so he doesn’t have to say anything.

And then there’s the part of him that early that morning, while he was walking around Beacon Hills looking for a shotgun right after a quick and peaceful chat with Deaton and Scott, crashed face first against the revolving door at the mall, breaking his nose.   

 

 

 


End file.
